Dawn to Dusk
by Belita Girl
Summary: An old picture found in Squidward's attic causes Spongebob and Patrick to question their neighbor. The story he tells brings up memories that he had kept carefully hidden and forces him to face his demons.


Dawn to Dusk: Chapter One.

Disclaimer: I don't own Spongebob.

Authoresses Note: I suddenly had this idea and decided to make a story out of it. It's starring Squidward mainly but it's mostly set in his past. I hope you enjoy and please leave your thoughts. Oh and this isn't a slash story. Not that I don't mind slash, I like slash but this is not slash.

* * *

It was an average morning in Bikini Bottom. The clams were singing in the coral trees, the nematodes were munching away on their latest meal and unfortunately for a certain octopus two idiots were deciding to make a two-man kazoo band right outside his window.

"Hey Patrick! Let's see how loud we can play!" The yellow sponge called to his pink starfish friend.

"Sure thing buddy!" Patrick called back before inhaling as deeply as he could and exhaling into the plastic instrument.

Squidward had been sleeping peacefully. He had been having the most wonderful dream. He was younger, back in his high school days, playing the solo clarinet in the school band. Before he could see the ending of his dream where an audience of about hundred applauded his abilities his eardrums nearly broke from the sound of two very loud kazoos being blasted.

He jumped out of bed so fast and came crashing to the floor, hard. Without thinking he suddenly thought the town was under attack and an alarm was being sounded. That is, before he heard two familiar voices laughing in a goofy manner.

He growled as steam seemed to pour out of his ears.

"SPONGEBOB! PATRICK!" He bellowed out of his window. He caught the attention of his two neighbors who looked up and waved happily at him.

"Oh hi Squidward! Want to join our band? You can play your giant kazoo!" Patrick said happily.

"IT'S NOT A KAZOO IDIOT! IT'S A CLARINET!" He screamed furiously and angrily shut his shutters so forcefully one of them fell off its hinges causing him to shout obscenities at the top of his lungs as Patrick and Spongebob looked on blissfully unaware of his rage.

"Okay maybe next time buddy!" Spongebob called up as the two decided to go jelly fishing instead.

As the two departed and Squidward's rage decreased he seemed to fall into a sort of depression. He had had that very dream many times before. The solo clarinet dream, that dream that haunted him as it constantly forced him to bring up his heavily locked away memories.

He shook his head as if to ward off the memories of his days of playing the clarinet for a band, days of being happy, days spent with _him_.

He shook his head once more and changed out of his nightshirt into his regular orange-brown shirt. He needed a walk he decided. He couldn't stay put. He needed something to take his mind off of that subject. He walked out his front door, too lost in thoughts to bother locking it.

He was too lost in thoughts to realize that coming down the other side of the street were his two neighbors in hot pursuit of a jelly fish headed straight for their block of houses.

"Get him, Pat get him!" Spongebob hollered as the two barreled down the road. Squidward had been walking so briskly that he had become nothing more than a speck in the distance.

Patrick had run ahead and was now trying to leap at the jelly fish who had decided to swim upwards. He just missed catching him in his net and the jelly fish escaped by swimming as hard as it could, straight into Squidward's attic window.

Patrick landed with a painful thud, smack down in the sand. Spongebob ran up to his unmoving friend and worriedly gave his back a poke.

"Pat? Pat! Speak to me!" He cried. Patrick raised his hand wearily and gave a thumbs up sign. Spongebob sighed with relief but looked up to where the jelly fish had cornered itself.

Patrick pulled himself up off the ground and spat out a mouthful of sand. He looked up to the window as well.

"What should we do Spongebob?" He asked curiously.

"We'll have to go get that jelly fish ourselves. We don't want Squidward to find it and get angry." He said as he reached for Squidward's front door knob. "Besides, Squidward will never even know we've been here. We'll go in and out okay Pat?"

"Got-cha!" Patrick agreed.

The two opened the unlocked door and stepped across the threshold quickly. Shutting the door behind them Spongebob quickly looked around.

"It went upstairs, we'll have to go up and look around and shoo it out a window." Spongebob whispered as the two walked up the stairs as quietly as possible. Well at leats Spongebob did, Patrick decided to try jumping up each step.

"Pat! What're you doing?" Spongebob asked.

"Hopping." He said simply.

"Well just try to be really quiet. Really, really, quiet okay?" Spongebob asked patiently.

"Got-cha!"

The rest of the trip up the stairs was uneventful. The followed the stairs all the way up to the attic door. It was closed and the two looked up at it.

"Okay let's not scare it Pat. We'll just go in and gently chase it out the open window." Spongebob explained the plan.

"Got-cha!"

Spongebob quietly opened the door and let Patrick in. The two looked around the packed attic. There were many paintings and boxes packed full of Squidward's old belongings.

"Look Pat! There it is!" Spongebob exclaimed as he saw the jelly fish resting stop a particularly high pile of boxes.

Pat seemed to take it in for a second before letting out a howl of a hunter cornering his prey and charged full speed at the boxes. He crashed straight into them causing various trinkets to fly everywhere. Spongebob just stood back as Pat rushed around the attic and knocked over other boxes and paintings onto the floor.

The jelly fish was frightened out of its wits and darted around the room so fast it looked like a jagged bolt of lightning. Finally when Patrick had tired himself out he collapsed in the middle of the room panting heavily. The jelly fish angrily swam over and gave him a painful sting before swimming out the window.

Spongebob approached Patrick whose body was smoking slightly. He handed out his arm which Patrick happily accepted. While Spongebob was bending over he noticed a particular item that had fallen out of one of the boxes, lying at Patrick's feet. He picked it up and the two inspected it curiously.

It was a simple black picture frame. The picture consisted of two octopi, they must've been about eleven in the picture, posing goofily for the camera. One of them looked oddly familiar.

"Hey that's Squidward!" Spongebob exclaimed as he pointed to the octopus on the left. The octopus in question had a full head of brown hair and was smiling happily for the camera.

"That's not Squidward, that guy has hair. Squidward is bald." Patrick pointed out.

"It must be a picture from when he was younger. But who's this other guy? Maybe we could ask him." Spongebob suggested.

"Or maybe you two should explain why you're standing in my now destroyed attic."

The two turned around to see the source of the voice. Squidward was standing right behind them. His face was calm but his eyes couldn't mask his fury. The two for once actually felt his rage as it seemed to radiate off him and backed away nervously.

He studied them for some time before he noticed the picture frame in Spongebob's hands. His face took on a strange expression and he made a few strangled noises.


End file.
